Pandemic Notes: and our echoed voices come back

A friend posted a link to an article that said something about the disease mess were in right now.

This friend has a different friendship network from me. It’s interesting to see what their network thinks and says, so I happened to have a look at the dozen or so comments.

Every single comment (at the time I looked) on their post was someone saying that the pandemic is a hoax. We need to reopen, and the libtards are keeping us locked up.

Another friend shared a similar post (same subtopic of the apocalypse — I’ve forgotten the exact title). Every single comment was about how we need to lock down tighter to control the pandemic. Some were scared that the people protesting are going to spread it even worse. How the stupid wingers are going to get us all killed through ignorance.

We are all breathing recycled air on social media. Not one person I know (I’m pretty sure) thinks this is a hoax (including the person posting that link).

We’re not talking to one another. We’re shouting into the cave of our people and our echoed voices come back to agree.

So, amped and propped up, one group points their megaphone-shaped community voice at another. And it feels like a scream. Rage, fear, challenge, insecurity, vulnerability, weakness, power and dread.

This doesn’t lead to shared knowledge. It doesn’t lead to ideas being polished and refined. And, it doesn’t lead to community building. It’s antisocial, inhuman, and it makes every encounter we have with other tribes combative and shouty. We fight back or flee.

We always hear the same shit we say and vigorously applaud ourselves. Or we fight, with emotions primed with fight-flight adrenaline, consideration and reason set aside in favour of the screams and cries. Blood pumps round our ears before thought enters our minds.